


Nothing But The Best

by cytheriafalas



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 20:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a disastrous breakup in high school, both Kurt and Blaine move on. They go to college, they get new boyfriends, and they more or less forget about each other. But when Blaine and his boyfriend move in next door, things change. This started out as a little bit of a crack fic, and I'm not sure how it ended up twenty-odd pages long. Chapters vary in size from 600 words to several thousand.</p>
<p>Implied (but not graphic) non-con in later chapters</p>
<p>Repost from my lj</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. October 2011, Ohio

October 2011, Ohio

 

“Blaine, I’m--”

“Stop,” Blaine said, holding up his hands. Kurt stopped out of reach, arms crossed over his stomach. “Don’t do this. Just don’t, okay?”

“I’m sorry--”

“Sorry?” Blaine echoed, half-hysterical. “You’re sorry? I had to hear this from Santana, Kurt.  _Santana_.”

“I never meant to--”

“ _Stop_. I don’t want to hear it.”

Kurt lunged for Blaine’s arm as he turned away. “Blaine, please, just listen to me.”

Blaine wrenched free and kept walking. Kurt was tall enough that he’d never had any trouble keeping up with anyone, but today he had to jog just to stay within reach. Blaine seemed determined to outpace him.

Most of the students at Dalton had the final period free. The ones who had nothing to do after school had already left, but the rest spent the hour loitering in the hallways, much to the teachers’ constant disapproval.

“People are  _staring_ ,” Kurt whispered, reaching to catch Blaine’s arm again, but the cotton sleeve of Blaine’s uniform slipped through his fingers.

The students were staring, peering out from study rooms and stairwells. Their earlier shouting match had earned them a curious following, and now as they walked down the one main hallway through Dalton, the students barely bothered to pretend they were on their way to somewhere else. Other students were whispering back and forth, but they were all watching.

“Let them stare,” Blaine snapped. “And stop trying to  _touch_  me.”

“I’m just trying to explain.”

The halls were starting to clear of people, but Kurt suspected that the Warblers were behind their abrupt departure. He could see one or two of them down a hallway every so often, ushering people aside and giving Blaine the privacy they thought he deserved.

The hallway ended at the largest lecture hall on the campus, two hallways splitting off from either side, and Blaine finally had to stop walking. Wes and David stood to one side, and Kurt blocked the other hallway. Standing beneath the portrait of Richard Dalton, the founder of Dalton Academy, Blaine turned at last to face Kurt.

“I didn’t believe her, at first,” Blaine said. “I thought,  _this is Santana_. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, ‘cause she looked so sincere, you know? I realized that every time I walked into a room with your friends, they all went quiet. And they’d been doing it for a while now.” He laughed bitterly, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I asked Rachel. I thought she might be able to tell me what was going on. And maybe she’d even lie, which I… I think I wish she had. You should have seen the  _look_  she gave me.”

Kurt stayed silent, eyes focused somewhere on Blaine’s shoulder.

“Did everyone know but me?” Blaine asked in a broken voice.

Kurt nodded.

“You  _slept_ with him, and you hardly even let me touch you.”

Kurt took a step toward him, reaching for Blaine’s hands. When he pulled away again, Kurt fell still. “I love you, Blaine.”

“Get out of here.”

“Blaine, please.”

Blaine stared at him, mouth opening and closing. It would have been funny, except that Kurt  _had_  cheated on Blaine, and Blaine’s anger was totally justified.

“Phone,” Blaine said, holding out his hand. Kurt dug it out of his pocket and handed it over numbly. Blaine unlocked the screen and began fiddling with something there, talking while he did so. “I loved you, Kurt. I really, really did.”

“I  _do_  love you, Blaine. Let me explain. Danny--”

“Shut. Up,” Blaine hissed. “Don’t say his name.”

Kurt’s phone blipped into the silence. Blaine pressed the button to lock the screen and tossed it back at him.

“I deleted my number. Don’t call, don’t text, don’t show up at Dalton. I don’t want to see you again.”

Blaine walked away. David appeared from a doorway in the hall, slinging an arm around Blaine’s shoulders. Wes fell into step behind him, blocking him from view. Kurt watched them until they turned the corner.


	2. September 22, 2017, New York

September 22 2017, New York

Kurt felt warm hands rubbing his back. “Kurt, baby. It’s time to wake up.” The owner of the voice was pressing kisses against his neck. “C’mon, you. You can’t be late today.”

“I’m never late,” Kurt grumbled. “I’m fashionably on time.”

“Of course you are. You don’t even have to be to work until ten-thirty. If you didn’t insist on your moisturizing routine…”

“I could sleep until ten. You tell me this every morning, Gregory.”

“I want to keep you all to myself,” Greg murmured between kisses. “Is that a crime?”

Kurt rolled over, holding out his arms for his boyfriend to snuggle down beside him. Greg dropped to the bed, laying half on Kurt and half on the bed, his head resting on Kurt’s chest.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately,” Kurt said, pressing a kiss into Greg’s dark hair. “Once we get through this last run of board members, things’ll go back to normal.”

Greg peered up at him. “This is good for you. If they like what they see, it could mean some more help for you and Billie. Which means more of you for me.”

Kurt ran his fingers through Greg’s hair, tugging him up for a kiss. “I love you.”

He felt Greg smiling against his lips, but when he pulled away, there was concern in his green eyes. “I love you, too.” He kissed the corner of Kurt’s lips. “Are you okay?”

“Just a dream,” he said. He had them sometimes, where he was sixteen or seventeen again, and people were chasing him, hating him.

Greg nuzzled closer, granting a few gentle kisses to Kurt’s neck before he spoke. “They can’t get you here, baby.”

“I know.”

They lay in silence for a few minutes, wrapped in each other’s arms. Kurt’s head rested against Greg’s, and Greg’s hands brushed comfortingly along Kurt’s side.

“I don’t know how your skin stays so  _soft_.”

“That’s why I get up this early,” Kurt said, squirming away when Greg’s fingers reached the ticklish spot on his side. “I’ve got to shower.”

Greg sighed dramatically, draping his arm across his eyes. “Fine. Leave me all alone.”

Kurt leaned over and kissed him again. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Greg’s eyes cracked open. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Kurt said, grinning. “Tonight.”

“Well, in that case… what do you want for breakfast?”

“I’ll eat whatever you’re having,” Kurt said. “Just--”

Greg was standing behind him, arms wrapped around Kurt’s waist, his hands splayed possessively on Kurt’s stomach. “‘Just make coffee.’ I know. I’ve got it all ready. All I have to do is turn it on.”

“I wish I could stay home with you today,” Kurt said, letting his head drop back onto Greg’s shoulder.

“That dream really bothered you, didn’t it?” Greg asked. He turned Kurt until they were face-to-face, arms tight around him again. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. How about we turn off our phones and computers and spend it on the couch watching TV?”

“It’s a date,” Kurt said, reluctantly stepping out of Greg’s arms and toward the bathroom. “Could you go grab our mail? I’m waiting on something from Dad and Carol.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Kurt wandered into their bathroom, running his fingers through sleep-tousled hair. His shampoo and conditioner were lined up along the edge of the shower; his face wash and body wash nearby. He’d managed to convince Greg to switch from the shampoo-and-conditioner-in-one only a few months after they’d moved in together. The switch from bar soap to body wash had taken a little longer, but he’d finally succeeded. It still made him smile, remembering the time Greg had come home with the body wash in a grocery bag. He’d tried to sneak it into the bathroom before Kurt could see.

He turned on the water for his shower, warm, not hot, because hot is worse for your skin. While he waited for it to warm up, he set out the various lotions he needed for the day. Greg laughed at him, whenever he caught him. Sometimes it made him laugh too, but he’d been doing it for so long it hardly seemed worth it to change, and it was doing something good, anyway.

When steam began seeping around the curtain, Kurt stepped in. It had been a long time since he’d dreamt of Blaine Anderson. Actually, it had been a long time since he’d had more than a passing thought about him. He’d seen him once after The Breakup at Sectionals. Blaine and all of the Warblers, even the ones that had never met him before, ignored him completely, despite congratulating the rest of New Directions.

Kurt let the warmth from the shower wash the dream, and Blaine, back into his subconscious. He had too much to do today, and a lot was riding on the visits. He’d made it through his mental To Do list twice, and had succeeded in putting it to “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” by the time he finished getting ready.

Nearly half an hour had gone by, and he could smell breakfast cooking in the kitchen. More importantly, coffee was done. He stepped out of the bathroom, hair damp and his white shirt unbuttoned and hanging open.

“Babe?” Greg’s voice called from the kitchen.

“Yeah?”

“Your bag is in our room under my shirt. Grab it now so you don’t forget it later. I’ve got to be at rehearsal early today, so I can’t run it to you. And we have new neighbors; they moved into Jackie and Rob’s old place.”

“Oh?” Kurt asked distractedly, digging through the pile of Greg’s clothes at the foot of the bed. They were really going to have to work on this. “That’s good. Greg, where is--?”

 “Under my  _shirt_ , honey.”

“Found it!” Kurt cried victoriously, pouncing on the errant shirt. He was digging through the bag as he walked down the hallway, hunting for the sheet music he’d promised Callie.

“They were looking for a good place for coffee, so I invited them over here instead.”

Kurt emerged from the back of their apartment, still digging through the bag. It always took him forever to find anything in there. He didn’t know why he’d thought it was a good idea to buy seven identical bright blue folders. One day he was really going to have to decorate them or something.

“They’re nudists,” Greg said from the kitchen. “There’s a new colony on the second floor. Their skin is the loveliest shade of green, and they’re the bastard children of a carrot and a potato.”

“That’s great, honey,” Kurt said. “We need to have a talk about your clothes…” Kurt’s mind finally caught up with his ears and he stared at his boyfriend. “Wait, what?”

“These are our neighbors,” Greg said pointedly. “This is--”

“Kurt?”

Kurt’s head jerked toward the voice. There was no way  _he_  could be in their apartment. When his eyes settled on him, half-standing in surprise, the duffle bag slipped from his fingers, the music spreading out along the linoleum.

“You know each other?” Greg asked.

“Knew,” Kurt said once he found his voice. “Briefly.”

“Well, this is Tony,” Greg said, gesturing toward the blond. “You apparently know Blaine.”

Kurt knelt, gathering up the music and taking a few moments to shuffle it back in order. He took a few steadying breaths. Blaine Anderson was sitting in his kitchen. Five years had made a few changes in him, but he was still Blaine. His jaw had become more defined, his skin was a little more tanned, his hair was shorter and obviously not gelled. He’d abandoned the cardigans and sweater-vests, wearing a shirt from some bar on twenty-fifth, but his eyes were still the same.

He slipped the music back into the bag, giving himself a few extra seconds to compose himself under the pretense of not crinkling the music, and stood up, a cheerful smile plastered on his face. “What brings you guys out this way?” Kurt asked.

“Closer to where I work,” Tony said. “Blaine has to go a little further, but our old place wasn’t cutting it anymore.”

“There were rats,” Blaine said. “They were bigger than his cat.”

“They weren’t that big,” Tony said.

Blaine nodded, mouthing, “They totally were.”

Kurt’s mind was still reeling. He dropped the bag on the counter and wandered over behind Greg, making a large circle around the two men seated at the island. He rested his chin on Greg’s shoulder, even though he knew by smell what he was making.

“Bacon and eggs?”

“Two whites and one yolk. And the bacon won’t kill you.”

Kurt rested his hand on the small of Greg’s back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Blaine watching him with a strange expression. Kurt drew his hand back and stepped away, buttoning his shirt self-consciously.

“Can you put that in some Tupperware for me?” Kurt asked. “I’ve got to head in early.”

Greg looked at the clock. “Two hours early? Kurt, it’s not even eight.”

“I’ve got a lot to sort out before Billie and the board members get there.” It was a complete lie. He’d planned to go in an hour early, but he desperately needed more time to deal with the knowledge that Blaine was sitting in his kitchen. “And I need to be looking spectacular when they get there.”

Greg pointed toward a cabinet. Kurt reached up, grabbed a Tupperware container from the shelf, and handed it to him.

“You always look spectacular,” Greg said, spooning half the eggs and more than half of the bacon into the container. Kurt snorted, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair. By the time he’d finished zipping it up, Greg was holding the container out for him. “Mail’s there. There wasn’t anything from Burt and don’t forget to eat.”

“I won’t,” Kurt promised. He grinned, despite seeing Blaine watching from the corner of his eye. Greg had an incredible ability to worry about him more than any other person he’d known in his life, including his father.  He stooped slightly and kissed Greg on the cheek. “Thank you.”

He grabbed the bag from the counter and slung it over his head, settling it on his shoulder. He’d put his shoes on and was reaching for the door handle when he heard a familiar jangling behind him.

Greg was holding up his keys. He took them and stuffed them in his jacket pocket, giving Greg a kiss goodbye. “Where would I be without you?”

“Locked out of the house more times than you can count,” Greg said.

“I’ll be at the gym after work.”

“You always go to the gym after work. After four years, this isn’t news to me. I’ll see you at home tonight.”

Kurt tossed a wave over Greg’s shoulder. “It was nice to meet you,” he said to Tony. “Sorry I have to run.”

He heard Tony say something as he dashed out the door and down the stairs.  
\---

It hadn’t occurred to Blaine that the Kurt Greg mentioned could be in any way be the Kurt he’d known in high school. He’d known Kurt had planned to move to New York, but Blaine wasn’t even on the theater circuit and there were almost nine million people in the city. He hadn’t even recognized Kurt’s voice at first, so much more self-assured than the last time he’d heard him speak.

The last five years had been exceptionally good to Kurt. He’d gained some muscle and seemed far more at ease with himself. Eighteen-year-old Kurt would not have walked around in an unbuttoned shirt, or kissed his boyfriend in front of a stranger. Part of Blaine was almost proud.

The rest of Blaine was still angry. And confused, and betrayed, and hurt. A large part of him wanted to know how Kurt deserved to be as happy as he was after what he’d done. Blaine shoved that part of him down beneath a smile as he watched Kurt say goodbye to Greg and escape out the door.

“I’m sorry about that,” Greg said, turning back to them. “I didn’t think he had to go so early.”

“Where does he work?” Tony asked.

Greg spoke as he went about cleaning up in the kitchen, packing the rest of the food into another Tupperware container and setting it out to cool. “It’s sort of a stepping stone between college theater and Broadway. Any theater and Broadway, actually, called Acting Kinetics. Most of the ones that go through there are just out of college, but they’ll take anyone with the talent who’re willing to work.”

“He’s not performing?” Blaine asked. The words spilled from his mouth before he was able to catch them. Because he did not care what Kurt Hummel was doing.

“He did some. But with me busy directing and him always at rehearsals or shows, it kept us apart too much. He agreed to take some time off. The roles’ll be there, and even if what he’s making now isn’t as much as what he could have been.”

Somewhere inside Blaine, a treacherous voice whispered,  _I wouldn’t have made him stop acting. I would have found some other way._

He squashed the voice.  _Kurt cheated on me._

Greg pulled up a chair on the other side of the island, offering them both another cup of coffee. Tony had already drained his. They’d found out earlier that both Tony and Greg were from New York, although Tony was from Buffalo and Greg from some tiny town neither of the other two had ever heard of, so while the two of them chatted about New York, Blaine took the opportunity to look around.

There were pictures everywhere. Kurt and Greg alone, Kurt and Greg with friends, Kurt on stage, Greg covered in what looked like sawdust and paint, Kurt and Greg in Paris. Kurt and Greg, Kurt and Greg, Kurt and Greg. There were photos of Greg with two dark-haired girls, some of Kurt with Mercedes and Rachel, but all Blaine could see was the life they could have had.

If Kurt hadn’t gone and slept with some other guy.

There were other signs of a life together that extended beyond their relationship. Programs signed by Lauren Bacall and Bernadette Peters, a shining stone that obviously meant something to them, a laptop with an open play script, a shoe rack piled with Kurt’s shoes, old college sweatshirts, piles of well-loved scripts, and plants everywhere.

But Kurt had slept with someone else.

“So, Blaine, how did you meet Kurt?”

Blaine blinked for a second, mind reeling back to the conversation. “Uh, high school. We were in show choir together for a little while, but it was only for a couple of months.”

“Oh,” Greg said, as though he’d suddenly put together what Blaine was saying. “Dalton, right?”

Internally, Blaine blanched. Somehow, your new neighbor finding out that you’d dated his boyfriend didn’t seem like a good way to start a friendship. “Yeah.”

“He doesn’t talk much about Dalton,” Greg said. “But you probably know about that.”

Blaine just shrugged, looking at Tony for help. He didn’t actually ‘know about that’ because he had no idea what Kurt had told Greg. Tony gave him a brief, confused look, but redirected the conversation anyway.

“So how did the two of you meet?” Tony asked.

“At Columbia freshman year. We had an Acting Techniques class together second semester.” Greg shrugged and Blaine saw a fond smile on his face, as though he was remembering something. Blaine’s stomach twisted painfully. “He moved in as my roommate sophomore year and we’ve been living together ever since. We started dating second semester that year.”

Blaine stood abruptly. “I’m sorry, I think I’ve got to… I forgot to feed Sparks.”

Tony stared at him opening his mouth, probably to tell him that they had already fed the cat, and she wouldn’t starve if they waited an hour, but Blaine left the apartment as quickly as he deemed polite.

He slipped into their apartment and closed the door behind him, leaning against the wall beside it. He let his head fall back against the wall, and stood there with his eyes closed.

“Shit,” he whispered to the room. Sparks lifted her head from her paws and meowed at him. She gave him a reproachful look and closed her eyes, drifting back to sleep.

He hadn’t thought about Kurt in a long time. It took him over a year to completely get over Kurt cheating on him, and it wasn’t until he entered college and met new people that he stopped thinking about it all the time. And now Kurt was here again and Blaine was completely unprepared for what he felt.

He’d played the scene in his head, sometimes. He’d see Kurt some day in the future and punch him in the face. But then he’d feel bad, so he replayed the situation and walked away. Or shout at him. Or any number of things that he did not do today.

Blaine kicked off his shoes and threw on an old sweatshirt of Tony’s. He paced through their living room twice, but it didn’t have any mementos like Kurt’s apartment. They were all packed in boxes marked FRAGILE in Tony’s handwriting, still piled up against the wall.

He walked instead to their bedroom and dropped onto their bed, the first thing they’d set up when they moved in the night before. He buried his face in his pillow, letting himself sink into Tony’s scent. He’d only been that way for a few minutes before he heard soft footsteps coming toward him and then the bed dipped as Tony sat next to him.

“Blaine?”

“I’m fine,” Blaine said into the pillow.

Tony moved closer and began rubbing Blaine’s back. “You’re not fine. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Blaine rolled onto his side, burying his face against Tony’s leg. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”

Tony made a sympathetic sound, taking one of Blaine’s hands. “Scoot over.”

With a reluctant sigh, Blaine moved away. A second later, he felt Tony lie down in front of him, and then wrap Blaine in his arms. He tucked Blaine against his chest. “You ran out of Greg’s apartment and now you’re hiding in our bedroom, wearing one of my sweatshirts, which you only do when you’re upset. Or really cold.”

Blaine just shook his head, curling closer to Tony. They lay like that for a long while, until Tony felt Blaine’s breathing even out and his body relaxed.

“Kurt’s the guy, isn’t he? The one who cheated on you?”

Blaine nodded.

“We can go,” Tony said. “We can stay with Erika for a while, if you want to. We can find another place closer to where you work.”

“It was five years ago,” Blaine said. “I’ll be fine. I was just… surprised.”

Tony sat up and walked toward their dresser. Blaine sat up, watching him. It was probably not thrilling for Tony to find out that his boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend was living right next door, especially one that had caused so much trouble early in their relationship. Blaine had still been uncomfortable in relationships, and it had taken him far too long to tell Tony why. That had almost ended their relationship nearly before it began.

Tony was digging in their dresser, pulling clothes out of Blaine’s drawers. He tossed them at Blaine.

“Take a nap, honey. I’m going to go shopping and then I’ll be back.”

“A nap?” Blaine echoed.

Tony came back and sat on the bed, putting his arm around Blaine. “I know you. And I know when you’re absolutely exhausted. You look it now.”

Blaine had to admit, he was tired, but it wasn’t quite nine, and even if he and Tony had taken the day off for the move, he hadn’t planned to  _not_ do anything. But Tony was giving him the look that he always gave him when he thought Blaine was about to do something either way too trusting or was being stubborn. He hadn’t yet figured out how both actions got him the same look.

“Okay, fine,” Blaine said.

Tony grinned at him and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Go to sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

Tony was right. When Blaine woke up a few hours later, he was almost prepared to face Kurt again. Almost. But he stood up and dressed, wandering out to the living room where he could hear Tony watching a football game.

The game was on in the living room, but Tony was in the kitchen, dicing some strange vegetables that Blaine didn’t even think he could identify whole in a lineup, much less once they’d been peeled and sliced and diced.

“What’re you making?” Blaine asked, stepping into the kitchen.

“You know…” Tony made a face at the skillet as he dropped the vegetables in. “I don’t even think I can pronounce it. But it’s supposed to be good.”

Blaine made a doubtful face at the sizzling vegetables, but shrugged. “I trust you. If not, Mia said there’s a good Chinese place nearby.”

“I count on you for your unflagging optimism,” Tony said. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Because I might need you in a good mood to try this. I’m not too sure what ‘Salsify’ is… or if there’s anything special that goes into cooking it…”

“There’s the internet for that,” Blaine pointed out. He nodded toward the TV. “Who’s playing?”

Tony made a disinterested noise. “Giants at the Packers. It was this or  _Hell’s Kitchen._ ”

“Already seen the episode?”

“Twice.”

Blaine pulled away, walking to a box labeled with a sloppy ‘Movies!!! Do not lose!!!’ He lifted the cat off it and carried the box to the island—identical to the one in Kurt’s apartment, except there was no artistic little sign with G and K in a heart, along with May 11, 2012—and dug into it. “What should we watch?”

Tony had gone back to his skillet and was pouring some sort of oil into it. “Something we don’t need to pay much attention to?”

“Well, we have  _Eastern Promises_ , one of the  _Pirates_  movies. I think it’s the sixth. And  _Valkyrie_  on the top…” Blaine dug a little deeper. “ _Serenity,_ your little sister’s copy of  _Mulan_ , the entire collection of  _Star Wars_ ,  _Goblet of Fire_ … Um…  _Kangaroo Jack_? Oh, here’s  _The Hobbit._ ”

“Throw that one in,” Tony suggested.

“You just don’t want to hear me sing ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ again,” Blaine accused with a grin.

“You’ve found me out,” Tony said dryly. “Blaine Anderson, I cannot stand the sound of your voice. Please, please, never sing in front of me again. I just might jump out of the window.”

“We’re on the second floor. You’d be fine.”

They spent most of the rest of the evening that way, gentle banter back and forth. Part of Blaine knew that Tony wanted to talk to him about Kurt, but Blaine had no intention of having that conversation. In fact, he had every intention of forgetting Kurt lived next door.


	3. September 25, 2017, New York

September 25, 2017, New York

Kurt stumbled through the door, exhausted. He’d had to stay an extra hour at work, thanks to the Board of Useless Directors Who Don’t Do Anything completely interrupting their lesson schedule and insisting on going through all their paperwork. And then he’d worked himself harder at the gym than he probably should have and he’d pulled a muscle, so he was going to be regretting it tomorrow.

“‘Why don’t you have any of this on a computer?’” Kurt mocked under his breath, shoving the door open with a shoulder. “Because we’re  _broke_ , imbeciles. That’s why you’re  _here_ , so we can get some more money and afford to buy a computer newer than the Windows ME that crashed a week after we bought it.”

“Tough day?” Greg asked, emerging from the back of the house, a towel slung over his shoulder.

“Stupid fucking Board of Idiots doesn’t seem to realize that we’re barely covering our costs, and that’s  _only_ because Gabe landed Enjolras and in his first interview he mentioned having worked with ‘a stepping program.’”

“Hey, hey. Kurt. Breathe.” Greg tossed the towel onto the back of a chair. “Drop your bag. Shoes off. Come here.”

Kurt did as ordered, toeing off the shoes, not even bothering to put them on the rack. He walked into Greg’s embrace and buried his face into his shoulder. Greg was murmuring soft words that hardly made sense until Kurt took a deep breath and pulled away.

Greg leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. “There. All better?”

“Not all of it. But most of it.”

“Good. Are you not getting your funding then?”

“No, we’re getting it,” Kurt said, lifting the bag and nudging his shoes onto the bottom shelf of the shoe rack. “But they’re going to be sending somebody once a week to make sure we’re ‘using it properly.’ And I get to be the one who gives him the weekly tour.”

Greg made a sympathetic sound. “I know how much you love that.”

Kurt shrugged.

“Oh, honey. Are you hungry?”

Kurt shook his head. “I grabbed a bagel on the way home.”

“I’ll take care of everything tonight. Go on to bed and I’ll be in later.”

Kurt didn’t even notice when Greg came to bed that night. He’d fallen asleep almost instantly, and it wasn’t until he woke up the next morning that he even realized he’d forgotten to change into his boxers.

Greg was awake, but still lying there, brushing his fingers through Kurt’s hair. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“Morning,” Kurt said, stretching up to kiss Greg. “We get to watch movies today, right?”

“Sometimes I forget you’re twenty-three,” Greg said, kissing him again. “Let’s get going then.”

They were curled up on the couch in a matter of minutes, Kurt’s head in Greg’s lap. The familiar opening theme of  _Aladdin_  began in the background and Kurt twined his fingers with Greg’s.

“Greg?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to talk to you.”

That drew his attention from the television screen and down onto Kurt’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s about Blaine.”

“The Blaine from yesterday?”

“Yeah. He’s… I wasn’t completely honest with you yesterday. We knew each other in high school, but… um…” He could see Greg’s forehead crinkle in confusion, but he stayed silent. “We dated. For a while.”

“So… he’s an ex?”

“He’s…” Kurt had to swallow. “I cheated on him. Once. It was complicated. But he found out and dumped me. Which I deserved, but…”

“ _You_ cheated on somebody?”

Kurt frowned at the emphasis. “Excuse me?”

“Honey, I have a hard time believing you would purposely hurt  _anyone_ , much less your boyfriend. You obviously adored him then, if it hurt you so much to see him after all this time.”

“Well I did,” Kurt said, jerking away and sitting up.

“Come here,” Greg said, coaxing Kurt to lie down again. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry. Continue.”

“That’s sort of the end of the story. He hasn’t talked to me since, and I think probably he doesn’t want to talk to me ever again.”

“Honey, you can’t let one mistake define you for the rest of your life. It’s been five years.” Greg paused, a look of concern flashing across his face. “Do you still love him?”

Kurt sat up so abruptly he nearly hit Greg in the nose. “Don’t even think it.  _I love you_. He was my first boyfriend, yes, and I wish things had ended differently, but I wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

“I am a little relieved to hear that,” Greg said.

“Why is this not bothering you?” Kurt asked, peering at him suspiciously.

Greg shrugged. “You said it was complicated, so I’m assuming you didn’t just get bored. And we’ve been together for four years now. If it had been you getting bored, we would’ve run into that particular problem already. Sure, it’s a little… disconcerting to hear that your boyfriend’s cheated on someone, but…” he shrugged again. “It’s in the past.”


	4. October 1, 2017, New York

Blaine rolled over, reaching for his phone. His fingers skated across the smooth surface of the bedside table, and although he managed to knock the lamp and his book off the stand, he couldn’t find his phone. He sat up with a groan, rubbing at his eyes.

All the blinds were drawn, and he could see only the faintest glimmers of murky light shining around them. Tony was already up, which didn’t help him figure out what time it was at all. The concept of a “sleep schedule” was completely foreign to him; he could wake up anywhere from five AM to noon, and it never seemed to matter when he’d gone to bed. But his watch was lying there, glowing softly on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. 9:18. They’d just gone to bed four hours earlier.

He stood up anyway. His phone charger was still plugged in, but his phone was annoyingly missing. He knew he’d brought it home with him that night. In fact, he’d texted Barrett right before he’d fallen asleep.

Tugging on a shirt against the early October chill, he walked into the living room, eyes still bleary from sleep. Tony was sitting there, a blanket wrapped around him and a mug of coffee on the table in front of him. He was intent on the cell phone in his hands, scrolling through something.

“It’s Sunday. You’re up way too early,” Blaine remarked as he walked into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge door, staring into it as though something would make itself.

Tony jumped, his hand sliding into his pocket. “I thought you’d be asleep for hours yet.”

Blaine shrugged, pulling the bag of bagels out of the fridge and tossing them on the counter. “I went to check the time on my phone, which I’ve lost, by the way, and by the time I found something to tell me what time it was, it hardly seemed worth it to try to go back to sleep.”

He gave the toaster a vicious glare, daring it to burn his bagels  _again_ , and turned back to Tony. “Have you seen it?”

“Your phone?”

“No, my virginity. Yes, my phone.”

Tony snorted. “You’re sarcastic this morning. No, I haven’t seen it. But now that you’re awake, I’ll go take a shower.” He nodded toward the toaster. “Your bagels are smoking.”

Blaine swore, turning around and unplugging the toaster. He could hear Tony laughing as he walked away and a soft  _thud_  from behind him, but he was too busy trying to rescue his breakfast from its crispy doom to tell Tony to pick up whatever he’d dropped.

He carried his blackened bagel, coffee, and cream cheese to the island and was in the process of scraping the worst of the burnt bits off when his text-tone went off next to him. He eyed the phone suspiciously. It definitely had not been there before. There hadn’t been anything on the counter before. Shrugging, he set down the food and pulled the phone over to him.

 

From: Barrett Henderson, 9:23 AM

            Oh my god. Youre supposed to STOP me when I start drunktexting people like that. Jesus

Blaine shook his head, keying up his texts from the night before. He stopped, staring at the last he’d sent.

 

To: Barrett Henderson, 3:58 AM  
            I bet Lia would love to hear from you. And so would I except I’m seriously in bed right now. You’re such an alcoholic, Barrett

He gave his phone one last doubtful look before he started typing out a response.

 “You found your phone?” Tony asked, rubbing at his hair with a towel.

“That’s bad for your hair,” Blaine said, on reflex. “But yeah, I did. I must have just dropped it on the counter when we walked in.”

Tony kissed Blaine’s cheek. “My hair is just fine. How are your bagels?”

Blaine made a disgusted noise. “I’m just going to have to get used to them, if we don’t end up buying a new toaster soon. I swear, that toaster thinks that ‘on’ means ‘burn to a crispy, crispy, crisp.’”

“You just need to have the right touch.”

“Right. While these cool down to some temperature where I can touch them without my fingertips blistering, I’m going to go plug in my phone. I can’t believe it didn’t die last night. The battery life on this thing is shit… Oh.”

“‘Oh’ what?”

Blaine tilted his head at the phone, like that would make what he was seeing make sense. “It’s fully charged. It was almost dead at like six last night.”

“Sleepwalking?” Tony suggested from the living room. He was retrieving his phone from where it was lying next to his coffee on the table.

Blaine shrugged, wandering back to his food. He picked at it for a few minutes. He was beginning to think that Tony was a little bit too vested in _not_  being concerned about this conversation. He scrolled through his text messages, but since he’d texted Barrett, that was the only one open. On a whim, he clicked to his contacts. It opened on the bottom of the Ks, between Korbin Herbert and Lanie Anderson.

His eyes flicked toward Tony and then back to his phone. Something didn’t quite make sense.


	5. October 4, 2017, New York

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Greg said. Kurt glanced at his phone as though he could see through it to Greg’s face on the other side. Greg didn’t sound terribly happy with the news. “Really, honey, it’s nothing.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Just come home when you can, okay? I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Kurt waited until he heard the soft click of Greg’s phone hanging up before he ended the call himself. The glowing numbers on the clock in front of him proclaimed 6:45, and the stack of papers in front of him wasn’t getting any smaller. He dropped his head to the rickety desk with a thud.

“Kurt?”

He looked up. Callie was standing there, her bag slung over her shoulder. “Didn’t I send you home? Like an hour ago?”

She laughed. “You did, yes. I practiced for a little while and Billie wanted me to make sure you were still alive before I left.”

“What’s the consensus?”

“You look alive. But you also look like you’re about ready to pass out. Have you eaten anything today?”

“What is with everyone asking me if I’ve eaten?”

“You weigh less than  _I_ do,” Callie said. “Take a break and grab a coffee and a… biscotti, or something.” When Kurt hesitated, she lifted his jacket from the wall hook. “I will  _walk_  you to Insomnia. Greg isn’t going to be upset if you’re twenty minutes later.”

She dangled the coat in his face until he stood up and took it from her. “All right, all right. Coffee it is. But I’m getting it to go and coming back here.”

“Deal.”

Kurt held out his arm for her, and she settled her hand in the crook of his elbow daintily. He paused to lock the door behind them, and they walked arm in arm toward the coffee shop. Callie was singing  _Send in the Clowns_. Her voice had just soared up for the line, “Just when I’d stopped opening doors, / Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours,” when someone called Kurt’s name.

“Blaine?”

“I was on my way to your work to see if we could talk,” Blaine said. “But I see that you’re busy.”

“I’m bringing him to get coffee,” Callie said. She might have been five years younger and two inches shorter, but she stared him straight in the eye. Kurt choked back a laugh.

“It’s all right, Callie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Callie gave Blaine another look but released Kurt’s arm, adjusting her backpack. “Four o’clock. Thanks for your help today.”

Kurt watched her walk off, because his only other option was to look at Blaine, or to studiously not look at Blaine, which was almost as bad. He could still see Blaine’s eyes flicking between her back and Kurt.

“Well?” Kurt asked, when he could no longer avoid the conversation.

Blaine crossed his arms and gave Kurt a measured look. “So now you’re cheating on Greg. With a girl.”

“You think that I’m cheating on Greg?”

“Well you’ve done it before.”

“Oh my God,” Kurt said, throwing up his hands and continuing toward the coffee shop. “You come all the way out here to accuse me of cheating on my boyfriend with a  _student_. She’s hardly even legal, Blaine.”

He heard the sound of running footsteps behind him. “Wait, Kurt. That’s not why I came out here. I was just… surprised.”

Kurt spun to face him. “You have no right to be ‘surprised’ about anything in my life. I’m  _sorry_  for what I did, okay? But everything was perfectly fine before you showed up here and made things all… confusing. Complicated.”

When Kurt had stopped walking, Blaine had been forced to stop abruptly and they were standing only a few inches apart. He took a careful step back. Kurt watched him. He hadn’t meant to get angry, but it had been  _five years_  and Kurt had really thought he was past all this.

“Can we just talk?”

“About what?” Kurt asked, turning back toward Insomnia. He could hear Blaine following him, scuffing his shoes in the leaves on the sidewalk.

“I just want to know what happened. Then I’ll go. I’m sorry for following you out here, but I didn’t think your boyfriend would appreciate it if I just barged in and demanded to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well neither would I.” Kurt grimaced at himself. It wasn’t his place to get angry. He owed Blaine at least this much. He pulled open the door, gesturing Blaine inside. “We’ll talk.”

The coffee shop was small, and beginning to fill up with the evening’s college students. One wall had the name of the shop painted in burnt orange all the way across it. The counter was directly across from it and the student working there looked up from his bored contemplation.

“Welcome to Insomnia. What can I get for you today?”

“I’ll just have a dark roast. Small,” Kurt said, handing over the required $1.65.

He was almost surprised when he saw that Blaine’s order hadn’t changed at all, although he noticed that Blaine didn’t add any cinnamon before they took a seat in the far corner of the shop.

“I just want to know,” Blaine began. “I mean, I don’t really remember much of what happened the day I found out.”

“There was a lot of yelling,” Kurt said dryly. “And you didn’t really give me a chance to explain.”

“You never called.”

Kurt shrugged, leaning back in his seat. “You made it pretty clear you didn’t want to hear from me. So I let it be. I thought you’d call me if you wanted to talk. I didn’t think it would take five years.”

“You  _could’ve_  called.”

“You wouldn’t have answered. You didn’t answer when Finn called, or Puck, or Mike. Or Tina.”

Blaine didn’t say anything, his hands fiddling with the paper sleeve around his cup. “Can you just tell me… Why Danny? You didn’t even like him. You told me he was… ‘brutish.’”

“He was.”

The words slipped out of his mouth before he could catch them. Kurt swore mentally, biting his lips, hoping that Blaine hadn’t caught them.

“Oh,” Blaine said, the expression on his face too carefully neutral.

“Don’t,” Kurt said, shaking his head. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters--”

“I cheated on  _you_ , remember?” Kurt interrupted. “You shouldn’t pity me. You should be… I don’t know… throwing things at me.”

Blaine gave him the look he remembered as the ‘don’t be dumb’ look. “What happened?”

Kurt took a deep breath. “Danny texted me one day and asked me to come to his house. He said that he had a couple of friends over. I’d had enough of him hitting on me every time I saw him, so I decided to go over there and just tell him enough was enough. I was dating you, and _very_  not interested, regardless. But when I got there, he had a full party going. Even some of New Directions was there.  
\--  
 _He couldn’t hear what the guy said when he shoved the red Solo cup into his hand, but he recognized him as one of Danny’s friends, even if he couldn’t remember his name._

_“Where’s Danny?” Kurt shouted above the music._

_The guy pointed toward the kitchen and mimed drinking until Kurt took a sip. He made his way through the crowd. More than one of them grabbed at Kurt’s arm, trying to pull him into the drunken dance orgy. By the time he slipped through, his drink was gone. After the first couple sips, he didn’t remember drinking any of it._

_Danny was standing in the kitchen, talking to another person Kurt didn’t recognize._

_“Danny, we need to talk.” Kurt’s voice was stunningly loud in his ears._

_“Kurt! I’m glad you came. Where’s Blaine?”_

_“He’s busy. I need to talk to you.”_

_Danny gave him another drink and put his arm around Kurt’s waist, his fingers digging in to Kurt’s hips. “Sure. Let’s go.”_

_Kurt was sure that something about that situation was wrong, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was, especially now that he had his second drink in his hand. It was different from the first, somehow. He let Danny lead the way back into the living room and down the hall, into a bedroom and shut the door behind them._  
\--  
“I wasn’t thinking very well at that point, or I would have told him we needed to talk outside. Or somewhere where there were people. Or anywhere but his bedroom. But, regardless, I very rationally explained that wasn’t interested in him, and that I was dating someone else, thank you very much.”  
\--  
 _Kurt reached for his drink, but the cup was empty. He was briefly confused, but stood up from the edge of the bed. The world tilted only a little. “I’m going now.”_

_Danny slid past him, blocking the doorway with his body. “Stay.”_

_Kurt made for the door, but Danny caught his arm, pushing him back toward the bed. He realized that he hadn’t seen Danny drinking anything and a cold, dark feeling gripped his stomach, beneath the warm buzz of alcohol. “I’m_ going _now, Danny.”_

_“You want me to stop acting like I’m interested in you, right?”_

_Kurt nodded mutely._

_“Then sleep with me. Just this once. And I’ll leave you alone.”_  
\--  
Kurt shrugged, his eyes on the table. He took a sip of his coffee to give himself some time to collect his thoughts again and distance himself from what he was saying. The coffee was lukewarm and settled uncomfortably in his stomach.

“I told him no, of course. I told him again that I was dating someone, that I loved him, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But he told me that everyone had seen him take me back here. Everyone knew you didn’t go into bedrooms to talk at a party. If I slept with him, he would tell them that I’d asked him to back off.  If I didn’t, he’d tell everyone that I’d had sex with him. That I’d… initiated it. He said he’d make sure it got back to you. And who would you believe? Him and New Directions and everyone else at McKinley or me?”

“I would have believed you.”

“Yeah, well whatever. I don’t really remember much… after. I just remember that once Danny… left, Rachel and Finn carried my half-passed out, drunk ass to the car, which is where they found out, I suppose. It was obvious what I’d done.”

“That’s  _rape_ , Kurt,” Blaine said.

Kurt hushed him, glancing around to see if anybody had heard. Nobody was looking at them. “I agreed to it.”

“You were in no condition to consent. You were drunk and probably drugged and he was threatening you. You could have reported it.”

“I was  _seventeen_. I didn’t even know that was a distinction. Besides, it was my word against his, and even if the cops had gotten involved, you know they never take cases like mine seriously.” Kurt shook his head, standing up. He’d barely touched his coffee. “I’m sorry about all of this, Blaine.”

He turned and walked out the door, leaving Blaine sitting in the coffee shop.


	6. October 5, 2017, New York

It was almost two in the morning when Blaine finally walked back into the apartment. He’d sat at the coffee shop for a few hours. The first hour, he hadn’t thought much of anything, sipping blindly at his coffee. It wasn’t until after he’d emptied it and tried to drink a few more times that his mind finally began to work properly again.

Danny had been popular at McKinley, the oldest of three hockey players. He’d graduated a few years earlier and was playing for the Buckeyes, but he came back often enough to watch his younger brothers play. He threw parties most weekends when he came home, and almost everyone was invited. Even the Glee club.

Kurt had begun to notice that Danny was paying more and more attention to him, inviting him to parties and football and hockey games, regardless of how often Kurt told him he was seeing someone. Blaine didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it.

He should have seen it. He should have believed Kurt when he said how uncomfortable the attention was making him. Sure, he’d gone to Danny and told him to back off when Kurt had requested it, but he’d never believed it was anything more than Kurt being unused to being pursued. Kurt always had been a scarily good judge of character, and Blaine should have believed him.

When he finally left Insomnia, it was already dark. He should have gone home then, but he didn’t want to go back to his apartment. It was too close to Kurt. Tony would have been back from work. He needed time to think, to understand exactly what had happened five years ago. So he walked. Walking aimlessly in the middle of the night through New York didn’t necessarily seem like a good idea, so he walked the twenty blocks to Wes’ apartment.  
\--  
Once Wes finished lecturing him on walking a mile through the city in the snow, they spent the next couple of hours talking, Blaine spilling the story between sips of a second cup of coffee to warm his frozen fingers.

Wes listened patiently and when Blaine had finished, asked the question that was simultaneously the most and least helpful. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing, I guess. What can I do?”

Wes nodded. “Exactly.”

Blaine set the cup down a little more harshly that necessary. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Wes said, “that you go home. To your boyfriend. And you stay there. Kurt’s not your responsibility. As horrible as that was, it’s over and he seems to be fine. From what you’ve told me of Greg, maybe it’s better this way.”

“But the things I said…”

“I was there,” Wes reminded him gently. “I heard it all. But it’s over.”

Blaine wanted to argue, but he had nothing left to say. He could barely comprehend what he was feeling. There was horror and shame and confusion. “Wes…”

“Go home, Blaine. Spend time in your new, ratless apartment. Other than your boyfriend.”  
\--  
“Where have you been?” Tony demanded as soon as he opened the door. He hadn’t even had time to shake the snowflakes from his jacket. “It’s two in the morning, Blaine.”

“We are not having this fight right now,” Blaine said, kicking off his shoes and tossing his jacket over the back of a chair.

“We’re not having a fight. I was worried about you. You didn’t call.”

“You didn’t call me either,” Blaine said, brandishing his cell phone as proof. “You couldn’t have been that worried.”

He pushed past Tony into the kitchen, digging in their fridge for something to eat. Tony followed him, leaning against the wall until he emerged again, holding a carrot and their container of hummus.

“You were with him, weren’t you?”

“With who?”

“ _Him_ ,” Tony insisted. “Kurt.”

“I talked to him, yes.”

“For nine hours?”

Blaine snorted, moving past him toward the living room. He dropped onto the couch. “I talked to him for maybe an hour. I went for a walk. I talked to a friend. I walked back here. It took a while.”

“You walked. Did you leave your Metro Card here?”

“I needed to think. You never  _used_  to care what I was doing, or where I was, or who I was with. What happened to that Tony?”

“Situations change.”

“What, my ex shows up and suddenly you’re paranoid I’m going to sleep with him?”

“Are you?”

“No,” Blaine snapped. He stood up, tossing the half-eaten carrot into the garbage and flinging the container of hummus back into the fridge. Suddenly, he didn’t feel hungry anymore.

“Well you’ve gotta give me something here, Blaine. You disappear after work and go hunt down your ex. How’d you even manage to  _find_  him?”

“Google. I thought we weren’t having a fight.”

“You’re not going to see him again.”

Blaine had been prepared to go to bed at that point, but the words stopped him where he was. “I’m  _what_?”

“You’re not going to see him again,” Tony repeated.

“You’re telling me who I can and can’t see? Am I allowed to go see my family, your Highness? May I go to work tomorrow?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. But  _damn it_ , Blaine--”

“I’ll leave your pillow in the hall,” Blaine said, slamming the bedroom door behind him. He had no intention of speaking with Kurt again. Their relationship had ended, and as sorry as he was that it had ended the way it did, it was over. But he wasn’t planning to tell Tony that now.

For a few days, Tony and Blaine stopped arguing. They hardly talked about anything. They didn’t talk about work, or Tony’s classes, or where they had been. They talked about what dish Tony was making for them for dinner.

Gradually, they began arguing again. Tony began calling him during the day, checking in on him. The day Blaine came home half an hour later than normal, Tony was waiting in the kitchen.

“Where’ve you been?”

Blaine walked past him, tossing his jacket over the back of a chair. “At work.”

A bowl crashed to the ground at his feet, and Blaine jumped. A shard of glass skittered across the floor and his foot. A red line blossomed on the skin there.

“What the  _hell_?” Blaine demanded. He grabbed a paper towel from their counter and pressed it to the top of his foot, stemming the blood. He dropped into a chair at the table. “ _What_  the  _hell_ , Tony?”

His boyfriend knelt in front of him, reaching for the paper towel. “I’m so, so, so sorry. Here, baby, let me--”

Blaine moved away. Tony’s face twisted in anger, and he stood up. “I bet you’d let  _Kurt_  take care of your foot.”

“Are you actually serious? What does any of this have to do with him?”

“Are you sleeping with him?” Tony countered. “Meeting him for a quick fuck in the bathroom?”

Blaine would have expected to be furious, but instead he went cold. “I want you gone.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Of course I meant it,” Blaine snapped. “You  _stole_ my phone and read my texts. Have you been reading my email too? Checking my calls? I’m tired of your bullshit. I’ll be back in an hour, and you’ll be gone. Anything you can’t grab in an hour, send Wendy to pick up.”

“How are you going to afford this place without me?”

“I’ll manage.”

Blaine stepped outside and slammed the door behind him. A wave of cold hit him as soon as he stepped outside. He’d left his jacket in the apartment in the middle of October. But he didn’t turn back. If he went back inside, he didn’t know if he would be able to leave again.

Tony could be a jerk sometimes, but Blaine wouldn’t have stayed with him for two years if he hadn’t loved him. He’d never been jealous, and if he’d had a temper, he was never violent. Blaine understood Tony’s anger, even if he couldn’t come up with a reason for  _how_  angry he was.

Because he did think he might have fallen back in love with Kurt. But Kurt was completely off-limits, not only because he had a boyfriend. He was off-limits because Blaine didn’t want to admit to himself that Tony might have been right. Maybe he had been avoiding home because he didn’t want to remember that the man he was going home to wasn’t the man he wanted him to be.

He found himself at Wes’ again.

“I’m going to have to give you a key, aren’t I?” Wes asked, swinging the door open. As soon as he saw Blaine, the words died in his throat. “Come in.”


	7. October 24, 2017, New York

Kurt jogged down the stairs of the building, passing a handful of students leaving the practice rooms. Billie was waiting at by the door, waving a take-out menu at him. “Hurry  _up_ , Hummel. Andrew can take care of the kids while we’re gone. That’s why we hired him.”

“Are you sure we should just be leaving him? He’s new…”

“He’ll be  _fine_. Now, do you want free beer and pizza or not?” Billie led the way outside, flinging her hair over her shoulder. “You deserve a break, Kurt. You’ve been working yourself sick lately.”

Kurt slung his arm through hers. She patted his hand while they walked. “Did you call Greg?”

“NYU asked him to do a guest lecture in their master class, and then he has rehearsal until ten. They’re opening for previews in a week, and he’s a little terrified somebody’s going to forget their lines, or miss a cue, or, god forbid, forget a lyric.”

“He’s adorable.”

Kurt grinned at her, laughter bubbling up after the stress of the day. “Isn’t he?”

“The two of you are the most perfect couple I’ve met in my life. Don’t ever stop.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Kurt said, hurrying her through the intersection before Aipzz, the so-called alphabetical pizza parlor. Kurt didn’t know who named it, or how to pronounce it. They all called it the Alphabet. “And I’m pretty sure he’s not, either. Are things not going so well with you and Nick?”

She sat down at one of the tables just inside the door, rubbing her hands briskly to warm them up. “Oh, they’re okay. He’s been spending a lot of time at home in Albany with his family.”

Kurt made a sympathetic face. He put his hand over hers, comforting. “His dad’s still sick, then?”

“Yeah. Nick won’t tell me anything about it, except that he’s not any better. He won’t even tell me if he’s getting worse.” A shadow fell over their table and she glanced up. The person standing there was not at all the server. “Oh. Hello?”

Kurt looked up when she did. If his mouth went a little dry, it was because he was thirsty, not because Blaine was looking down at him with such a heartbroken look on his face. He found himself standing before he realized he’d moved.

“Blaine?”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Billie, will you be okay if…”

Her face crinkled with concern and no small amount of confusion. “Yeah, go ahead. If you’re not back, I’ll just drop half the pizza off at your apartment?”

“You can just leave it in the fridge at Kinetic. The beer you should probably finish yourself.”

“You’re turning me into an alcoholic, Hummel.”

“Dating that Neanderthal will do that to you before I do. I’ll come find you when I’m done here.”

“Nick’ll be around,” Billie said. “This looks a little more important than my absentee boyfriend woes.”

Kurt shot her an apologetic look. They’d been so busy lately that they hadn’t had time to properly talk, and he knew she’d been wanting to tell him about Nick. But at her nod, Kurt led Blaine outside, folding his arms across his chest at the ridiculously cold October weather.

“What’s wrong?”

But before he could get an answer, Blaine was kissing him and for just a second Kurt could remember all of the reasons they’d been together in the first place. But he had the sense not to kiss him back, even if he didn’t shove him away quite as quickly as he should have.

“What the  _hell_  was that?” Kurt demanded, once he’d finally remembered to push him back. “Is this some twisted plan to get revenge on me for cheating on you?”

“No. It’s not… I’m-I’m sorry. It wasn’t… It had nothing to do with that.”

“You’re sorry?” Kurt echoed. “Blaine, what  _is_  this? I left Billie alone in the pizza shop when we were in the middle of a conversation about her delinquent boyfriend, and you drag me out here and kiss me in the middle of the street.”

Blaine’s face went carefully still, but Kurt could still read the flashes of pain on his face. Regardless, Kurt was  _angry_. There was no reason for Blaine to have dragged him out here just to kiss him and try to ruin his relationship with Greg.

“I love you, Kurt.”

Oh.  _Oh_. Except for that.

“You  _what_?”

“I lo--”

“No, I heard you. I just…  _what_?” Kurt’s mind was whirling. More accurately, it had cut itself off from the rest of his body in protest, and he was left trying to take up the slack. Blaine was standing there, hands in his pockets, looking absolutely dejected.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine said. He almost sounded petulant, speaking as quickly as he could. “I should have listened to you. I should have known that you wouldn’t have cheated on me--on anyone--without a good reason. If I’d listened, we could have done something about Danny. Kurt--”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“I  _do_. Kurt, I l--”

“God _damn_  it, Blaine. Please, just stop. Don’t do this to either of us, okay? That was years ago, and  _please_  don’t make this any more complicated than it already is. I love Greg. We both have boyfriends and--”

“ _You_  have a boyfriend.”

The words shocked Kurt into silence. “What do you mean?”

“We broke up. I think I broke up with him, actually.” Blaine shrugged, his scarf coming free from around his neck in the wind. “He kept telling me I was cheating on him with you, which is funny because you cheated on me.”

“You have a strange sense of humor,” Kurt said, watching Blaine pause and struggle with his scarf.

Blaine’s face was flushed a faint pink when he finally managed to reclaim the wayward end of the scarf. Kurt was willing to attribute it to the weather, rather than embarrassment.

“I… probably shouldn’t have done that. Kiss you, I mean. I’m…” Blaine shrugged, eyes on the ground. “I’ll talk to you later, Kurt.”

For the second time in his life, Kurt watched Blaine walk away with a strange, unidentifiable lump in his stomach. The first time it had been a mixture of guilt, sadness, and anger, but he wasn’t sure at all what it was this time. He stood there, until Blaine disappeared around a corner, his shoulders hunched against the oncoming winter.

Kurt made his way back to the pizza parlor. Billie was still sitting there, reading an email on her phone. She looked up when he sat down and put her hand over his.

“You okay?”

Kurt grinned in a way he hoped could be described as ‘brilliantly.’ “Tell me about Nick.”

“Then you’ll tell me about this hunk of yours?”

“He’s not  _my_  hunk. Greg is, remember?”

“Oh yeah. Tall, dark hair, stunning eyes… You realize the only difference between them is that Greg is about half a foot taller?”

“That’s not the  _only_  difference.”

Billie crossed her arms and leaned back, tapping her foot against the leg of the table. “Really? Well, is he gay or straight?”

“Honey, that scarf was Givenchy.”

“Not even a  _little_  straight?”

“Nope.” Kurt smiled, a memory of a coffee-shop kiss flashing before his eyes. “Not even a little bit.”

Billie sighed and shrugged. “The good ones always are. Or celibate.”

“Isn’t it usually ‘married’?”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

Kurt burst out laughing, loud enough to make the people at the next table look at him. He clamped a hand over his mouth until he’d gained enough control over himself to take it away. Billie was snickering, an unbearably smug expression on her face. The server had just set their pizza in front of them, and Kurt picked a pepper off the crust and flicked it at her.

“Now, you need to tell me about Nick. What’s he done this time?”

They spent the next two hours sitting in the pizza parlor, eating pizza and drinking beer. They talked about everything from Nick’s failure at boyfriendhood to work to the latest episode of whatever trashy reality show Billie had watched the night before. It had been too long since they’d been able to just sit and talk, without worrying about whether or not the paperwork had been entered into the computer, or if the Board of Completely Clueless Directors had checked their email yet.

It was after nine when Kurt finally stood up, citing the need to get up early the next day. They split up at the doorway with a hug, Kurt heading north and Billie east. The weather had gotten colder, and Kurt turned up the collar of his coat, jogging to the metro.

He let himself into his apartment and stopped dead. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what it was, so he took a moment unbuttoning his jacket and looking around. His eyes landed on a note pinned to the fridge.

 

_Kurt,_

_Before I say anything else, I want to say that I love you. Take a second and remember that, sweetie. Got it? Okay. This is a little hard to write, so bear with me._

_I saw you and Blaine today. Outside the Alphabet. I was going to drop by and say hi before I went to rehearsal. I’m not going to tell you that it doesn’t hurt, but I heard what you said to him. Thank you for trying, but I think you’re still in love with him, honey._

_I know you. You’d convince yourself you loved me more, or that you just had some sort of something unresolved with him. I want you to be happy. I love you, and I loved the time we had together. We made a good run of it, I think._   
_I hope I’m wrong about all of this, and if I am, I’m staying with Jackie and Rob until I can find a new place. You can find me there, but if you think it’s even possible that I’m right, and that you still love Blaine, just give it a little while. I’ll wait until you decide._

_I took the picture of us in Paris. I left the one of us in Rome. I’ve split up some of our stuff, but I’ll send Jackie and Rob to get the rest of it in a couple of days._

_Be happy with him, Kurt. Don’t blame yourself for this. I love you, but so does he. And he’s waited so much longer for you than I have. I’m going to miss you. ~~I just~~  Theater teaches us things, Kurt. In every story, the guy gets the girl he’s meant to get. Or in this case, the guy. There might be other people between them, and they might get a little lost along the way, but they find their soul mate. I really think he’s yours. And you’re his._

_Love always,_  
 _Your Greg_  
   
Kurt read the note three times before he let it fall onto the counter, landing upside down. He realized, then, what was wrong with the apartment. Greg’s sweatshirts, always strewn about the rooms, were gone. His shoes were gone; half of their mementos and pictures were gone. He sprinted to their bedroom. Everything was gone from there as well. Greg’s pillow, all of his clothes. Everything of his was gone from the bathroom.

But another note was lying on his pillow. It had a phone number written on it, one he didn’t recognize. The writing was still unmistakably Greg’s.

Kurt threw himself down on the bed, burying his face in the pillow and inhaling deeply. He cried there, surrounded by Greg’s vanishing scent, for the first time in a very long time. His heart was breaking and he couldn’t entirely bring himself to blame anyone but himself.

He woke up the next morning, groggy and with his eyes burning from tears and lack of sleep. He almost expected the reality of Greg’s absence to hit him harder in the morning, but he just felt lost. Lost and a little sick.

But he made himself get out of bed, ignoring his phone when Billie’s name popped up on the screen, and made a cup of hot chocolate, and spent the day curled up on the couch watching reruns of shows he hadn’t seen in years. He spent the next several days that way, at first ignoring anything but the painful loneliness in the pit of his stomach. After a while, he began to compartmentalize, separating the parts of him keening for Greg from the parts of him that still quivered when he heard Blaine’s voice.

It was around the fifth day of this that he heard a knock on the door. He’d gotten innumerable texts and calls from Billie, ranging everywhere from “are you okay” to “so help me, if you don’t respond to this, I’m sending the firemen there. The real ones. Not the ones who pose for the calendars.”

“Who is it?” he called, but the person on the other side of the door didn’t answer. He figured Billie had probably given up on expecting responses from him, other than his one where he told her he was still alive.

He sighed and stood up, grateful that even though he hadn’t left the house in five days, he at least still had proper hygiene. He swung the door open.

“I told you, I’m fine…” He had to blink twice before he realized who he was looking at. “You’re… not Billie.”

Blaine just smiled, wan and tense. “No, I’m not. Can I come in?”

He barely waited for Kurt to step aside, but once he got inside he stopped, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“What’re you doing here?” Kurt asked, quashing the voice inside him that had cried out gleefully when he’d seen Blaine framed in his doorway.

“Greg called me. Billie said you hadn’t been to work in a couple of days. They wanted me to check on you.”

“Oh.”

They stood in awkward silence for a few seconds, Blaine’s hands still in his pockets. Kurt wished he’d put a little more thought into his clothes for the day, even if a glance at the clock showed him it was barely past nine.

“So.” Blaine cleared his throat. “How are you?”

“I’m… okay.” The absurdity of it all made Kurt snort out a laugh. Blaine gave him a look that might have meant he thought Kurt had lost his mind. “Are we really doing this?”

“They were worried about you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

Kurt turned and walked back into his living room, aware of Blaine following. Blaine seemed content to stay silent, holding a few feet away. When Kurt risked a glance over his shoulder, aside from being in his living room rather than kitchen, Blaine hardly seemed to have moved at all.

“What’s this about?” Kurt asked at last. “You could have told Billie to come check on me herself. I’m surprised she didn’t.”

“She wanted to,” Blaine confessed, at last pulling his hands from his pockets. But he only folded his hands together in front of him. “I guess Greg had asked her not to. Something about you needing to make up your mind on your own. I think he finally got worried enough to send someone.”

“Well… thanks.” The part of Kurt that was only slightly upset at Greg for leaving, the one that had wanted him to take Blaine in his arms when he’d appeared at the door, had hoped that Blaine had come to see him on his own. “I’m fine, so you can go.”

He heard Blaine draw a deep breath, but he let it out with a whoosh. “Okay. Well, if you need anything, you know where I’ll be.”

Kurt waited until Blaine had closed the door behind him to drop to the couch and pull a pillow over his head.


	8. December 2, 2017, New  York

It had been more than a month since Blaine had seen Kurt, more than his shadow in the window or his voice in the hall. He judged by the absence of more calls that he’d resumed going to work, or at least he’d convinced everyone else that he was still alive and well. And as far as Blaine knew, Greg hadn’t come back, as far as Blaine knew.

He’d hoped the first week that Kurt might call him, but he’d remained stubbornly silent, so eventually Blaine gave up. He didn’t stop listening for Kurt’s voice, but he stopped hoping every time somebody knocked on the door or called that it might have been Kurt. Tony had been sending people to pick up “one last thing” every night for the last week. It was never Tony himself, and Blaine didn’t really know what he would have done if it had been.

He was sitting with his guitar on his lap, notebook open next to him, and plucking out a few strains of the newest Unlike Sahara in Midwinter song. When he paused to write something in his notebook, he heard someone knocking at his door.

Blaine sighed, glancing at the clock. It was almost eleven and there was no reason for Tony to need anything this urgently this late in the night. He unfolded his legs and stood, setting the guitar where he’d been.

He expected to see Wendy, or maybe Erika, but instead Kurt was standing there, scuffing his foot against the floor.

“Hey,” Kurt said.

“Hi. Was I being too loud?” Blaine gestured over his shoulder at his guitar.

Kurt shook his head. “I couldn’t even hear you. Can I come in?”

Blaine stepped aside, holding the door open for him. Kurt stepped inside and looked around, his eyes flicking from bare wall to bare wall.

“I haven’t really had time to… do anything with it,” Blaine said. It was only a little bit of a lie. He’d had plenty of time; he just hadn’t done it. It hadn’t seemed worth it, seeing as he really couldn’t afford to live there by himself for very long. He was pushing it the two months he’d stayed there already.

“I want to ask you something.”

“…Okay.”

Blaine tilted his head to the side. It wasn’t Kurt’s way to be so direct, but whatever it was had to have been bothering him enough to cut straight through all of the ‘how are you’s and ‘what have you been doing’s. Kurt’s finger trailed along the faux marble of the countertop, and his lips moved, for several seconds before he spoke.

“Were you serious?”

“Was I serious when?”

Kurt gave him a look that Blaine translated correctly as ‘don’t bullshit me’ but he answered anyway. “After you kissed me. What you said.”

The incident was enough to make Blaine shift uncomfortably. “I said I was sorry.”

“Were you serious?”

“Yeah.” Blaine shrugged. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

“Do you still?”

Blaine was a little bit out of practice at translating Kurt into normal English and the semi-cryptic, rapid-fire questions weren’t doing much to help Blaine understand exactly what was going on in his head. He nodded, forehead crinkled in confusion. “I do, yeah.”

“Say it, then.”

“Kurt, what the hell is going on here?”

“Are you going to or not?”

Blaine threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. I love you, Kurt Hummel. I haven’t stopped loving you since… God, since the day I met you, and I’m not about to stop now.”

The expression on Kurt’s face stopped him. There was something heartbreakingly lost there, as if he wanted so badly to believe him, but he didn’t know if he could. Kurt tried so hard to be trusting, but god-knows-how-many years of constant abuse made it hard sometimes. He was suspicious of everyone and everything, until they proved their trustworthiness. And Blaine had done nothing in six years to earn that status.

The sound that came from Kurt’s lips couldn’t have been a sob, but it sure as hell sounded like it. He threw himself forward, into Blaine’s arms, and stood there. Blaine closed his arms around him, feeling Kurt shake. “What’s--”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot what?”

“What it felt like to love you.”

Blaine steered them both toward the couch, sliding his guitar over with one hand. It fell to the ground with a cracking noise that couldn’t have meant anything good. “Did something happen?”

Kurt handed over a note that looked like it had been read and re-read until Blaine could only read parts of it, but he could read the important parts. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I didn’t--”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Kurt snapped, sounding for the first time that night like the Kurt he’d known years ago. “You don’t get to apologize about this, because if you’re apologizing about kissing me, then… then I don’t know if you kissed me because you _had_  to or just wanted to, and I didn’t go back to him  _for you_.”

Kurt’s hands were shaking. Blaine set the note on top of his guitar, which had a crack running through the wood and was completely ruined, and took Kurt’s hands between his. He shushed him, running his thumbs across Kurt’s knuckles.

“It’s okay,” Blaine murmured once Kurt calmed enough to at least look like he might be paying attention to what Blaine was saying. “You know he would never leave you if he thought it wasn’t what you needed.”

“Why are you defending him?” Kurt asked. “Shouldn’t you be all jubilation and joy?”

Blaine grinned, but smothered it immediately. He’d missed this Kurt. “I think it’s a little tacky to celebrate victory this early. I could, though. I’ve got a little song and dance ready and everything.”

Kurt snorted, but his eyes focused somewhere past Blaine’s left knee on the ratty carpet. “So what is this? I mean… do we start over? Are we…”

“I don’t know,” Blaine confessed, “but I guess we sort of start right here for now. We can figure it out as we go, right?”

Kurt nodded, glancing around the room as though he were searching for something. “Wanna watch a movie?”

“Tony took most of them. I have a couple, though.”

He watched Kurt stand up and walk toward the small pile of cases. He grabbed one and put it in, then came back to the couch and sat down beside Blaine. As the opening credits began, Kurt leaned hesitantly in. Blaine lifted his arm and let Kurt slide in closer, his head not-quite resting on Blaine’s shoulder. They sat like that for a long time that night, even after the movie ended, the main menu playing on repeat in the background.


	9. April 16, 2021, New York

“Are you ready for this?” Blaine asked, straightening Kurt’s collar.

Kurt smiled tersely, his hands tugging at the hem of his shirt. “Of course I am.”

“You look so  _old_ ,” a voice said behind them. “That make-up’s incredible.”

“Well,  _hell-o_  beautiful.” Callie flicked her skirts as Kurt turned around. Blaine snorted into his coffee cup. Kurt laughed at him, slipping an arm around Blaine’s waist. “Nervous yet?”

She shrugged. “A little. But weren’t you the one who always said that if you didn’t feel anything before a show you might as well quit?”

Blaine made a little ‘aww’ sound, his hand resting on Kurt’s shoulder. “You’re getting quoted. You’re halfway famous already.”

“I think I quoted someone else when I said that. You’ll be wonderful, Callie.”

She blew a kiss in their direction and headed off to another room down the hall.

“Little brat’s turning into a flirt,” Kurt said, but he smiled while he said it. “I’m proud of her. She’s grown a lot since you stopped us on our way to Insomnia.”

“Are you having a proud daddy moment?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “Actually I was thinking that it was… I don’t know, ironic?... that she was singing was  _Send in the Clowns_  and now, four years later, she’s singing it again on stage as part of the opening night cast.”

“You will both be magnificent.”

A stage manager knocked on the door and stuck her head in. “Ryan wants everyone on stage in five for your last make-up check. Then you’re all meeting in the back for warm-ups. Doors open in twenty.” She vanished and Kurt could hear her making the same speech to someone else further down the hall.

Blaine tugged on the collar one last time and gave him a quick kiss. “I left Billie waiting at the bar. I’d better get back to her. You’ll do great out there tonight. I’ll see you after.”

Kurt waved goodbye and watched his husband maneuver his way through backstage, around props and costume racks. He turned back to the mirror, checking his reflection one last time.

The last four years may not have been perfect, but they were close enough that Kurt didn’t really care. They’d fought a lot the first month, years of resentment bubbling to the surface at the worst possible times, but when Blaine had responded to Kurt’s, “I don’t even know what you  _want_ from me anymore” with “I want you to marry me” that came to an abrupt halt. They still fought, of course, every couple did, but it was no longer the kind of fighting that ended relationships.

Blaine made up for winning “least romantic proposal of the year” award by proposing a second time, complete with ring and song,  in front of the Gershwin as the audience for the evening show had been arriving. Kurt had turned same red as his sweater when people started cheering, but he’d said yes and they got married March 23rd, 2018.

They were living in the suburbs now, in a house they owned, with two baths, a bedroom, a guest bedroom and a dog. Wes called them “the picture of domesticity” the first time he visited. Blaine had thrown a leaf in his hair, but Kurt knew that privately he was proud. They’d had to work hard to repair their relationship, and sometimes they’d both thought it wasn’t going to work.

But it had. And when Kurt stepped out onto the stage in front of a cheering crowd for the first time in a very long time, he decided it had worked out pretty well.


End file.
